RE the United Nations vote. If, as predicted by much of the media, the United States uses its veto to oppose the Palestinian application for statehood at the Security Council this coming week, it will finally explode the myth that America is the champion of freedom, justice and democracy.

It will also be a further example of its appalling double-standards and demonstrate that it prefers to support a regime which has blatantly ignored UN resolutions, international law and human rights.

The American founding fathers must be turning in their graves at the way in which their idealistic principles have been abused and abandoned.

President Obama has a golden opportunity of leading his country into doing the right thing for once but all the indications are that he will allow himself to be bullied by un-elected lobbyists and the lawless regime in Tel Aviv as were his predecessors.

So much was – and still is – expected of Obama and he has the opportunity of going into the history books as a president who had the courage to break the tragic deadlock in the festering sore which is Israel/Palestine and which has unnecessarily cost so many lives.

As it is, when the history of American foreign policy over the past few decades comes to be written, it could be summed up in two words: Sanctimonious Hypocrisy.

GORDON CLACK, Witney Road, Ducklington